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Monday, August 19, 2013

Times They are a Changing - Kids' Lives in 2013

We writers for middle grade aged readers try to portray contemporary characters accurately in our fiction, but it takes careful work not to confuse our own memories of being children with the actuality of kids’ lives in 2013. Yes, kids are still kids, and friendships and family relationships haven’t changed all that much, but day to day life has changed. I’m always fascinated by museum displays of artifacts from different time periods, those everyday objects common then, but largely gone now, and with them, the time people spent using them. How many kids these days have sling shots or decoder rings or even baseball bats?

My observations only deal with what I see in my world, which is largely made up of suburban middle class families, so the following won’t hold true with large parts of the U.S., and certainly not of the bigger world. I thought it was important to consider these things though, because when I write a collection of characters, I want them to seem as real as possible. So here are some of the differences I’ve noticed in many kids’ lives now versus even ten years ago:

Luckily, kids still play with Legos. Legos made up an important part of WILDFIRE RUN and I based that on knowing just how many kids were and are obsessed with them. Kids still play with other toys too, but toys are competing with other distractions and scheduled lessons and practice.

There is more time on organized sports and more concentration on doing just one type of sport. It used to be that soccer or swimming had a season, and when the season was done, the child was done with it for the year. Now, even ten-year-olds can and do play soccer or swim all year on leagues and elite teams. If you have a character intensively involved in one of these sports, you’ll have to figure out to work in the time commitments in your stories.

The same holds true with dance, gymnastics and ice skating. For example, by the time a dancer is about twelve, there is quite a lot of pressure from most dance studios to commit to coming two or three times a week, and to participate in extra shows or competitions. Skipping a practice is greatly frowned upon, and kids are supposed to manage their homework so they don’t need to take a night off from dance to study.

Family involvement in sports is often a requirement as well, as parents coach and sell snacks and monitor their offspring at all day meets. I’m always trying to figure a way to get parents out of the picture when I’m writing a story, but parents are far more present now than they used to be, especially in sports.

When kids do get together for some free time, what they do in that time has changed too. Group video game playing is a very common activity, particularly for boys. It used to be years ago, a kid who wasn’t good at basketball or baseball could often feel left out. Now it’s the kids who don’t have the latest video games or who aren’t good at them.

Then there is youtube. A group of kids together with a computer will often end up watching youtube videos as a social activity. I was just recently clued in to the existence of youtube stars, ordinary people with entertaining vlogs who have collected huge followings.

There are more ways for kids to find things that interest them. While you can view the time they spend on the internet as a curse, for some kids, it opens up a world to them they might not have discovered otherwise. I know kids who have become fascinating by cartooning, writing fan fiction, making short films, learning how to decorate cakes, even making their own chain mail for fun, all by discovering other people doing the same thing on the internet.

These things are only a few observations, and I know I’m missing many. So if you are writing contemporary kids, what else have you noticed about their lives now that could add believable details to your stories?

21 comments:

Cell phones. Today, kids as young as kindergarten age have their own smart phones. But I'm not sure what kids that young do with them. Mostly play games, I guess? My oldest niece just turned 13, and she finally got her own cell phone. Many of her classmates have had a smart phone since second grade, and the ones who didn't got their own by fifth grade. She was one of the last, and it was all she complained about for the past three years. So cell phones are huge for kids right now.

I was pretty lonely as a child. I didn't live in a housing development. We lived along a major highway, and I couldn't cross the road or ride my bike on it. My mother didn't have her own car for most of my childhood, so there weren't a lot of playdates, either.

Well, my grandmother (Who raised me) has always had a car when I was growing up, but I never became friends with the kids on my street, or if I did, it didn't last long. I think it's because I came off too needy.

More often other kids around were really older than me or toddlers, so I rarely met kids my own age outside school, and I really had zero luck making friends at school either. My not being into sports certainly added to that.

I can vouch for the video game thing, but I could never afford to buy additional controllers to play with the few friends I had at any one time, so we took turns.

If I were growing up now I'd just bring my controller over if a friend had the same system I did, you avoid the germ issue without coming off rude and you'd still play together at the same time. My favorite games tend to be RPGs since you can enjoy those alone.

I never liked shooter games, either too grossly violent or people get deadly competitive, and I'd hear the F word more times than I can personally stomach.

I'm a guy, just to clarify, and I still don't like shooters, except, the ONLY gun-based game I ever loved, it's not super gory and has a cartoony look and narrative that's a nice change from the uber-manly intenseness you have with games like Halo or Call of Duty, neither of which I have interest in, and don't get me started about Madden (I like arcade sports games better)

But hey, when you've been lonely long enough, you don't always realize that at the time.

It's hard for me to admit that most of my friends are online, in spite of the jerks around, and I hope I get to meet some of them, it's not so bad since we're all adults, I was more careful when I was a teenager even before all these crazy jerks started invading the internet. It also helped that avoided Facebook until my twenties.

As much as some parents curse the internet where their kids are concerned, for some like me it's the only reliable way we connect with others, and especially since my twenties, shopping online.

I still love shopping offline and supporting my local businesses, but because I don't drive and can't afford a car and its mandated insurance, my ability go out is dependant on the kindness of relatives. Contrary to popular belief, not all of us still reliant of family help is proud of it!

But it's still not the same as being with someone in the same room. I hope to even out my offline relationships with my online ones.

EDIT: I'm a guy, just to clarify, and I still don't like shooters, except Ratchet and Clank, the ONLY gun-based game I ever loved, it's not super gory and has a cartoony look and narrative that's a nice change from the uber-manly intenseness you have with games like Halo or Call of Duty, neither of which I have interest in, and don't get me started about Madden (I like arcade sports games better)

It is expanding. I would have liked the ability to look up anything and everything on the internet. Our set of encyclopedias and our small town library couldn't hold everything I wanted to know as a kid, especially about other countries. I do regret that there is less time spent on imaginative play and outdoor play once kids hit eight or nine. I think preInternet, that was still so common

Have to agree with Laura about the cell phones. Seems like every kid has one. (And I just saw a baby in a stroller using mom's phone -- probably to keep him quiet.) Whether we like it or not, the smart phone is the most important invention of our time. I suspect middle grade kids are mostly playing games on them, though. Well, and texting.

They do go a little crazy when they first get the ability to text. Right now I see the next big jump will be kids having smart phones, rather than just the standard phone, so they will be on the internet more.

I think one thing I see as a major change in kids' lives is letting them be out on their own--unattended. Sadly, in this day and age, we have to watch our kids like hawks. I know very few parents who let their kids even play in the front yard without being watched. It's too scary to think of the the what-ifs. Even in small rural towns things happen, so I think that's changed the landscape of writing in certain ways. I would never let my child walk to school alone or play outside with no one watching them. I'm sure my kids think my husband and I are crazy, but I'm willing to accept that. Great post, Dee.

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